Right. Having the separate detachments being crosstrained in either Halo or as Divers is a good move. Have we seen Flint's Covering platoon? I thought he was part of the HQ section of the Direct Action Element. I need to go back and see the org redesign I may have missed it.

Right. Having the separate detachments being crosstrained in either Halo or as Divers is a good move. Have we seen Flint's Covering platoon? I thought he was part of the HQ section of the Direct Action Element. I need to go back and see the org redesign I may have missed it.

Click on the following link to download the updated organizational set-up:

Yep. It's working now, though. I just tried it (the link should be at the bottom of the sendspace page... it might be hidden behind a pop-up ad if you don't have a pop-up blocker enabled).

Here's a breakdown of what I patterned the various elements/units under:

- Command & Control Element: Loosely based on a combination of the Stryker Brigade Combat Team and 75th Ranger Regiment Headquarters & Headquarters Companies.

- Direct Action Element: the headquarters section was loosely patterned after a ranger company's headquarter's structure (with some Marine infantry company headquarters influences). The assault platoon and weapons platoon were based on ranger regiment rifle platoon and weapons platoon structures. The covering platoon structure was based on SEAL platoon structure.

- Special Operations Combined Aviation Element: Loosely based on the make-up of an ARSOA battalion task force's assault helicopter element, admixed with a USMC KC-130 detachment.

I skipped making a dedicated aircraft or ground vehicle maintenance element. A unit this size, ground vehicle operators are expected to perform 1st and 2nd echelon maintenance on their vehicles (anything that requires more work will simply be shipped to a dedicated vehicle maintenance unit). Same with the aircraft. Daily maintenance should be handled by flight engineers, crew chiefs, maintenance technicians, and a small organic unit of mechanics. Anything beyond the scope of the course of routine field maintenance, and that's a responsibility that falls on non-organic, external maintenance units.

I'm really liking the revisions you've made to your layout, especially getting Quick Kick into CID with Chuckles and having a named Joe command nearly every unit. The only thing that seems a bit strange is having Snake Eyes as a member of a unit. The fact that he can't talk would seem to be a hindrance to squad based tactics. I always saw him as a solo operative doing off the books missions answerable only to Hawk, possibly with a government rank. It stands to reason that he would probably have been discharged from the normal military structure following his injuries.

All in all, this is fantastic work and I applaud you for not only undertaking it, but being receptive to input.

EDIT: Is Recondo being Navified? Nice work on making him a marksman along with Sneak Peek.

I think it was just so his original toy version would make sense being packaged with the Mobile Missile System playset.

There's nothing really that should prevent an Artillery officer from going Special Forces, though. As I've mentioned before, an officer must at least be an O-2(P) (a 1st lieutenant on the promotion list to captain) or preferably a full O-3 qualified in one of the combat arms branches (infantry, field artillery, air defense artillery, army aviation, armor, corps of engineers) to be eligible for Special Forces Officer training. One could easily imagine Hawk starting out as a field artillery or air defense artillery officer and then going Special Forces once he hit captain.

Back in the late 1970s, Hama pitched a comic book concept to Marvel calling it Fury Force, a spin-off of the then-popular Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD comics Marvel was publishing at the time.

undated (late 1970s/very early 1980s) "Fury Force" character sheet drawn by Larry Hama;
Top Row, from left to right: Scarlett, Hawk, Steeler, Snake-Eyes
Bottom Row, from left to right: Tunnel Rat, Leatherneck, Stalker

undated (late 1970s/very early 1980s) "Scarlett" character sheet drawn by Larry Hama;
note the unit insignia on the top right

Larry Hama's pitch was rejected by Marvel's editors at the time. In 1981 or thereabouts, Hasbro hired Larry Hama to write the filecards for their new "A Real American Hero" line of 1:18 scale GI Joe toys, and he then resurrected and re-designed many of his concepts for Fury Force and used them for the early GI Joe characters.

Coincidentally, Fury Force was supposed to be an international anti-terrorist team (SHIELD operates under the direction of the United Nations), so it seems like we've finally come full-circle in a way, what with the upcoming GI Joe: Rise of Cobra live-action film featuring a GI Joe team re-imagined as an international strike force.

dude, thank you for posting this, very very cool ~ i can't believe Tunnel Rat and Leatherneck "existed" that far back. I love seeing old concept art like this...

The only thing that seems a bit strange is having Snake Eyes as a member of a unit. The fact that he can't talk would seem to be a hindrance to squad based tactics. I always saw him as a solo operative doing off the books missions answerable only to Hawk, possibly with a government rank. It stands to reason that he would probably have been discharged from the normal military structure following his injuries.

Good point. I've always wondered how a mute person would realistically work out as part of a small infantry unit. Having him as a solo operative sounds like a great idea, but I don't know how that would work in terms of chain-of-command and how I'd work it into the greater structure of the unit's organization. He could be off-the-books or possibly attached as a consultant or technician (like what I did with Mercer... although it's easier to incorporate Mercer since the protocol for "ranking" attached civilian employees to military units is fairly transparent). I'll have to look it up and see if there's a precedent I can base it off of.

dude, thank you for posting this, very very cool ~ i can't believe Tunnel Rat and Leatherneck "existed" that far back. I love seeing old concept art like this...

You're welcome. I don't remember if they were already named as such (probably not), but in an old interview, Hama did say that those concepts would eventually evolve into the characters Tunnel Rat and Leatherneck (interesting thing about the "Leatherneck" sketch is that he's holding a grenade launcher, so it seems like some of the elements from his design found their way into Gung-Ho's design as well).